Dr. Frances Has a Deep Understanding of the Risks of DSM-5’s Misapplication

He was chair of the DSM-4 Task Force and of the department of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC. He is currently professor emeritus at Duke.

Your Hits on His Post Can Send It Viral

We are publishing the first part of Dr. Frances’ blog with a jump to the full article on PsychologyToday.com – in hopes that it will go viral. If it gets thousands of hits Dr. Frances can use this as evidence of opposition, to pressure DSM-5 to reconsider “wording that could tag an unnecessary mental disorder on millions of people suffering from medical illnesses” such as ME/CFS.

Many readers of my previous blog listing the ten worst suggestions in DSM 5 were shocked that I failed to mention an eleventh dangerous mistake - that DSM 5 will harm people who are medically ill by mislabeling their medical problems as mental disorder. They are absolutely right. I apologize for my previous failure to attend to this danger and hope it is not now too late to influence the process.

Adding to the woes of the medically ill could be one of the biggest problems caused by DSM 5. It will do this in two ways:

1. By encouraging a quick jump to the erroneous conclusion that someone's physical symptoms are 'all in the head'; and

2. By mislabeling as mental disorders what are really just the normal emotional reactions that people understandably have in response to a medical illness.